


Basic humanity

by Septdeneuf



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: AU, Gen, iz rvb challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 21:31:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7239247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Septdeneuf/pseuds/Septdeneuf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Corporal David [REDACTED] gets sent to find a traitor to the UNSC harboring a dangerous alien. What he finds isn't quite what he was expecting.</p><p>For Goodluckdetective's RVB challenge on Tumblr, prompt: Welcome to the multiverse</p>
            </blockquote>





	Basic humanity

_"Sector Echo is clear, no sign of the deserter. How about you, Corporal?"_

"Nothing so far, but I'm not quite done with my sector. I'll report in if I spot anything", David said, touching his hand to his helmet.

 _"Whole thing's a waste of time, if you ask me. Betcha the first thing that fucker did was get off the freaking planet"_ , his teammate's tinny voice informed him from the speaker. 

"You're probably right. Still, it doesn't hurt to check", David replied. 

 _"Easy for you to say, at least there's no swamp in your area"_ , came the grumbled reply. 

"And yet, you're already done with your sector. Sure you did it right? Maybe they're hiding somewhere in the mud. You should go back to check that by digging through all of it," David teased. 

" _Man, fuck you, my armor's cracks are so caked in mud already I'll be scrubbing for weeks!"_

"Have fun with that", he encouraged his radio before closing the channel. He got up from behind the rock he'd taken cover behind to turn to the mountain range he still needed to check. There was no hostile activity as far as he could tell, but you could never be too careful. Taking cover at all times had pretty much become second nature at this point. Doubly so now, that they were searching for an Elite and a human deserter. 

Just like his teammate had said, though, he wasn't expecting to find anyone as he started climbing up the side of the mountain, There hadn't been anything on his motion tracker in hours and the chances that the Elite and the deserter were even still on this planet were slim. 

The whole time, he hadn't been able to think about the mission briefing. And even after hours of wondering about it, he still had no idea what could motivate a UNSC soldier, or any human, really, to run away from their post with a Sangheili. Short of being kidnapped of course, but what use would an Elite have with a random private from a remote outpost that didn't even have any strategic value? 

Apparently the other soldiers from the guys outpost hadn't been able to shed any light on the matter, but David's superiors were convinced that the guy had betrayed the UNSC and all of humanity in the process. If you wanted to be dramatic about it, anyway. Not that David made a habit of that. 

According to the intel his squad had gotten, the guy, _Lavernius Tucker,_ as the mission objective display on his HUD helpfully supplied, had had a pretty unremarkable service record before the whole thing. Nothing to indicate any particular sympathy to the enemy that was slaughtering their troops. 

Maybe the fact that David couldn't fathom what possible motivations one could have to do something like that was a good thing. Meant that whatever deep end that dude had gone off to, he was nowhere near it. 

  He was about halfway up the mountain and starting to envy his teammate for picking the swamp, because he'd be busy scaling these mountains forever if he wanted to be thorough, when he found a half hidden crevice next to the path. 

It was just big enough for a adult human to fit through, but nowhere near big enough for an Elite, so he was nearly prepared to just leave it, but a quick scan told him that it opened into a much wider cave, and much of that was out of the range of his scans. While this crack wasn't big enough for an alien, there was no telling how many other entrances there were to these tunnels. Great, a network of tunnels, even more to search. He'd never get done with this sector at that rate. 

Still, he might as well check it out since he was here already. He put a marker on his HUD to track his path so that he'd find his way back, because getting lost in a cave forever wasn't exactly in his retirement plan. 

On the plus side, there was a much lower chance of dropping off a cliff if he was inside rather than outside. Of course, a cave could have drops, too, depending on its topography. Oh joy. At least the tunnel he arrived in as he squeezed through the crack wasn't wide enough for a car to fit through. A mongoose, maybe, but those were much less likely to run him over. 

As it turned out, it wasn't quite the branching maze of tunnels David was expecting. The path actually lead pretty straight ahead, with a mild incline. The further he walked, the less sure he was about how smart an idea it was to go into a potentially endless tunnel without telling anyone where he went, but when he tried his radio, he discovered that he had no signal in here. 

Maybe he should just turn around and come back with a bigger team.

Just as he thought that, though, he realized there was light spilling out of a branch of the tunnel up ahead. Warm, flickering light, like from a torch. 

David raised his rifle and turned off his helmet lights. He did his best to move quietly, but he was under no illusions. His armor was built for potential space missions, not for stealth. Better be quick, then, if he wanted to keep the element of surprise. 

As he rounded the corner, he spotted a man standing with his back to the marine, partially dressed in aqua armor, but not wearing a helmet. He was holding something, but it was hidden from view.

"Freeze! Drop the weapon!" 

The guy turned around, looking startled and dropping what turned out to be a wooden spoon before raising up his hands at seeing David's rifle. 

"Lavernius Tucker, I assume?" The picture that had come with the mission briefing hadn't been of the highest quality, but how many black guys wearing aqua armor were likely hiding in a cave on a planet with nothing of note except for a small military outpost on it. 

"Uh… depends on who's asking?" The guy's eyes were darting around the cave, probably looking for something to use as a weapon, and David raised his rifle higher in warning. There was a battle rifle sitting on a rock to David's right, completely out of the guy's reach. Nothing else in the little cave seemed to be suitable to be a weapon. There were some pots, something that looked like a makeshift kitchen and some rocks of different sizes arranged to vaguely resemble a table and chairs.

"The UNSC. You're wanted for treason, but if you resist, I am under orders to kill you, so you'd better not give me a reason to", David explained courtly. "Now, where's the alien?" 

"Uh… ha, what alien? There's no alien, why would there be an alien? It's just me… uh… chilling. You know, trying to get away from the stress of… uh, my job and shit, just taking a sabbatical. I'm just a regular hermit, no aliens or treason or anything." 

David leveled an unimpressed stare at the man. Not that he could likely tell, since he was wearing a helmet, but still. "Yeah, sure, lots of hermits on uninhabited planets these days." 

"Hey, it's not uninhabited. You're here, I'm here, that's like a population right there." 

"I don't live here, I don't count." 

"Okay so that makes me the only one, so I'm a hermit. Bam, how you like that?" The guy looked pretty satisfied with himself for that. 

"Where's the alien?", David repeated. 

"Dude, I already told you, no aliens, just hermits! I mean hermit, cause it's just me." There was no mistaking that nervous tremor in Tucker's voice. He didn't have a great poker face. 

"Look, my superiors want that alien alive for some reason, so if you cooperate and help me apprehend it, that might reflect in a positive way on your court martial. And trust me, you need all the help you can get", David tried for the reasonable approach. Not knowing where the alien might be was putting him on edge. He may have the upper hand right now, because Tucker wasn't armed, but if the Elite was anywhere behind him, tat could quickly change. Not that he was willing to trust him, but having the deserter come around to help him with the alien would be a big advantage. 

"Can't help you, dude, there's no alien." He almost said it confidently enough to be believed, but the fear in his eyes didn't seem to be directed at the rifle pointed at him. 

David's motion tracker pinged, and he thanked his lucky stars when he saw that the movement was coming from the tunnel opening behind the guy. 

A moment later a shape burst out of the opening and attached itself to the guy's leg. A wailing "Honk!" accompanied the action. 

For a moment David could do nothing but stare. That certainly hadn't been mentioned in the mission briefing. The shape turned out to be a small Sangheili, barely taller than the guy's knee. 

The alien was a child. 

At least what David assumed an Elite child to look like, not that he'd spent much time thinking about it. He'd certainly never seen one before. 

"Junior, what did I tell you about staying in your room if there's people?", the guy said, a panicked edge to his tone, even as he put his hand soothingly on the scaly head. 

"Where the hell did you get a Sangheili child? Did you abduct it, why would you…?" 

"I didn't abduct him!", Tucker protested. "He's my kid!" 

"What? That doesn't… He can't be _your kid_ , he's obviously Sangheili!", David shot back. 

"Yeah he is, I gave birth to him and everything!" 

"You… what? But you're… I mean you don't… I thought…" As he was speaking, David realized that he was digging himself into a hole there. Just because the guy was a traitor was no reason to be intolerant about… unexpected… body configurations.

"Huh? Use your words, man, I have no idea what you're asking." Said with a lot of attitude, considering David was still pointing a loaded rifle at the guy. 

"Well I just… wasn't expecting… you don't exactly look like you have the right parts." The last part was all one breath, trying to get through the embarrassment as quickly as possible. 

"Oh right", Tucker said with a laugh. "I don't, but parasitic alien pregnancies don't really give a shit about your human parts, you know?" 

"I really don't." Well at least he wasn't at risk of being transphobic anymore. "You mean to tell me you gave birth to an alien baby?" 

"Well, yeah, that's what I just said. That was kind of crazy, I guess." 

"Yeah…" Helmets were a great invention. That way the guy couldn't see how David's jaw was hanging open. That probably wouldn't have been a look conducive to the whole 'threatening space marine' image he was trying to project here. 

"Junior, remember what we talked about, you need to get out of here" Tucker said lowly, while David was still trying to process the thought of a human male giving birth to an Elite baby. That effectively snapped him out of it. 

"No. The alien is coming with me." 

"Junior, buddy, you gotta go, we talked about this." The little alien shook its head emphatically. 

"If you resist, my orders are to shoot you. If you just hand over the alien, and come with me, this doesn't have to end in bloodshed", David said. 

"Fuck that, I'm not giving you my kid", Tucker said, with the most conviction David had heard of him yet. "Junior, get out of here." 

"Blarrgh! Honk honk blargh!", the kid said, shaking its head again. 

"If he runs I shoot you and then take him anyway, you really think that's gonna accomplish anything?" He already had a feeling his appeal to reason wouldn't work, but he at least had to try. The situation wasn't at all what he'd expected and he had to push away an uneasy feeling at the thought of shooting the guy. 

"Go ahead, you'll never catch him. Junior, run!" 

"Honk! Blargh honk!", the alien cried out, grabbing even more tightly to the guy's leg. 

"We don't have time to discuss this right now, Junior please, you have to get out of here!" Tucker implored. He tried to push the alien behind him, toward the tunnel it had come out of, but it was holding on too strong and wouldn't budge. 

"Honk! Blargh!", it said, sounding like it was close to tears, not that David had any idea whether or not a Sangheili was even capable of crying. 

"I'll be fine, we'll talk it out, and I'll catch up with you", Tucker said in the tone of parents everywhere, lying to their children. He even gave the kid a fake smile that was almost painful to look at. 

"Honk, honk honk!", the kid said, pressing its face to the guys leg. 

"It can all be fine, if you just come with me", David tried again. His grip on his rifle had loosened, and when he realized that he grabbed it a bit righter. 

"Hell no. You have any idea what those UNSC assholes are gonna to do Junior if they get him? I'm not gonna let that happen!" 

"Then my orders are clear!", David said, raising his rifle higher. 

"I don't care, I'm not giving you my kid. Junior, seriously, get the fuck out of here, I'm not joking around." The little alien didn't seem to care. It suddenly let go of the guy's leg, and instead of running away like it had been asked to, it stood in front of him raising its arms to the sides. 

It honked and blarghed again. David had no idea what it was saying, but if he had to make a guess it would be something along the lines of "If you want him, you'll have to through me first." Not that that really mattered from a practical standpoint, because it was way to short to protect any of the guy's vital areas. David would have no problem shooting the guy right there, alien in front of him or not. 

"Junior what the fuck are you doing? I told you, run!" Tucker had been putting on a more or less brave face before, but now David could see exactly just how scared he was. Not for himself, but for the little alien trying valiantly to protect him, even if it was no use. 

His orders were clear. They weren't going to come with him peacefully, he'd tried being reasonable. Now what he had to do was shoot the guy, subdue the alien and bring it back to his superiors for them to do… whatever they were gonna do. 

The guy was a deserter. A traitor. He deserved a court martial at the very least, and if he resisted, there was no real reason for David to feel bad about shooting him. He was harboring a potentially dangerous alien, and had abandoned the UNSC, humanity, really, if it came down to it, for its sake. 

All of that was true. 

Except that wasn't really the situation David was faced with, now. 

He could try to tell himself about how despicable a traitor the man in front of him was a billion times. But that wouldn't change the fact that he was looking at a parent and a child both terrified for the other's sake. He'd never seen an Elite show fear before, or had never looked for it, because this wasn't the kind of war where you could afford to empathize with your enemy, but one look at the kid was enough to know how scared it was. And still determined to protect his Dad despite all the fear. 

David was about to shoot a dad in front of his kid. The kind of atrocity that could fuel any tragic super hero origin story. Making him the villain of this piece. But that wasn't the point. From countless alien's perspectives he was a villain already, that much was certain. 

His orders were clear. But he still had a choice to make here. And he knew that if he went through with this the fear on the kids face and the defiance on the guy's would haunt him forever. Did he really want to be the kind of person who carelessly tore apart a family, because he was blindly following orders? 

The rifle in his hands was shaking, just slightly, and he wondered when it had started. 

He couldn't do it. 

It was too dark, it was too evil. How was he supposed to be a protector of humankind if he was willing to throw away his own humanity at a few orders? 

He let out a heavy breath as he lowered his rifle. Both the alien and its dad perked up at that. "Holy shit", David said, and let out another heavy breath before shaking his head. 

"Blargh?" the alien asked in a hopeful tone. 

"Just… if you ever do get caught, could you not mention that you met me? I don't really want to be court martialed for this." 

"You're… letting us go? For real?" Tucker sounded breathless and hopeful, and in the sudden light in his eyes David could read that he'd made the right choice. 

"That doesn't mean you're safe. I can tell them that there was nothing in this sector, but I don't think it's a good idea for you to stay here too long. They seem pretty interested in finding your kid and if they're not successful elsewhere, they might come back. It wasn't too hard for me to find this place, others could to." 

"I'll keep that in mind", Tucker said, stroking his hand over Junior's head absently.

"See that you do", David said and turned to leave. 

"Thanks, man." 

"Don't mention it. Seriously, don't, I really don't feel like being court martialed." 

"I won't, don't worry." 

 

**Author's Note:**

> In case it's not clear, I've never played Halo, and thus have only a very basic understanding of the war with the Covenant, hope that doesn't detract too much from this. 
> 
> Let me know what you think!


End file.
